In a late Tuesday ruling, the Nevada Supreme Court has denied a request from Republican plaintiffs (including the Trump campaign) for immediate action. Republican plaintiffs had challenged ballot-counting procedures in Clark County, Nevada, seeking to stop the county’s usage of a particular signature scanning machine. The plaintiffs also wanted more access for their poll watchers, who the Republicans claimed were unfairly excluded from watching the counting process how the Republican Party wanted, and in return, the GOP at one point asked the court to allow them to place cameras on the ballot-counting premises. Nevada’s Supreme Court concluded that the Republicans “have not shown that factors militate in favor of a stay or injunction, and the request for immediate relief is denied.”
🚨🚨BREAKING: Nevada Supreme Court DENIES Trump/GOP motion for emergency stay. "Appellants have not shown that factors militate in favor of a stay or injunction, and the request for immediate relief is denied."
Court sets briefing schedule on appeal.https://t.co/0MwSMAD5NT
— Marc E. Elias (@marceelias) November 4, 2020
President Donald Trump himself has previously singled the state of Nevada out for criticism because of its decision to send mail-in/ absentee ballots to all registered voters, which other states have done before this election and still other states began doing once the Coronavirus pandemic set in and made voting at in-person polling places dangerous, at least for medically vulnerable populations. Trump and Republicans have alleged that there is some potential for widespread fraud with the usage of mail-in ballots, but these claims are baseless. The repeated Republican insinuations that there’s some kind of conspiracy to rig the election in favor of Democrats are totally false — plain and simple.
Hillary Clinton won Nevada in 2016, and — once final results are tallied — the state could be a key pick-up for whichever candidate wins in the state. Democratic voters tend to vote by mail more than their Republican counterparts, so thwarting the timely processing of mail-in ballots — as Republicans have sought to do — could disproportionately disadvantage Democratic voters. Clark County Registrar of Voters Joseph Gloria said that he feared that the county would not be able to process all ballots on time if the signature scanning machine that Republicans have been targeting was to be taken out of the equation — but Republicans are still pursuing their case anyway. For now, the Nevada Supreme Court has stopped that case.
Steep litigation over the 2020 election could still be imminent. Trump recently told reporters that his campaign is prepared to fight post-Election Day ballot-counting in Pennsylvania (and elsewhere, presumably), despite the fact that making sure that all valid votes are counted should not be a controversial position.
Trump told reporters:
‘We’re going to go in the night of, as soon as that election is over, we’re going in with our lawyers … if people wanted to get their ballots in, they should have gotten their ballots in long before that.’
These comments are a threat to democracy. Watch Trump’s threat below:
The quiet part, screamed: Trump tells reporters that "we're going to go in the night of, as soon as that election is over [in PA], we're going in with our lawyers … if people wanted to get their ballots in, they should have gotten their ballots in long before that." pic.twitter.com/sAMA0Pw6Tg
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) November 1, 2020
